Indians: Tom Hamilton up for a prestigious award this offseason

The award nominations continue for the Cleveland Indians this offseason as broadcaster Tom Hamilton is up for a prestigious award.

There are Cleveland Indians fans who only listen to radio broadcasts in order to hear the voice of Tom Hamilton. There are others who can’t stand him.

I never understood the view of the latter, but to each their own.

Hamilton is a fixture of Indians baseball and his work has landed him as a finalist for the 2020 Ford C. Frick Award. The broadcasting award has eight finalists, with the top finisher being honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame next July.

For more information on the award and the finalists follow this link. The notable news for Indians fans is that Hamilton himself is a finalist.

His voice is so iconic in Cleveland that fans routinely wait for the team to tweet out his calls of big moments such as walk-off hits and home runs. Even those who hate “Hammy” have to love some of his biggest calls.

Some gripes against him include his rants on literally any conceivable topic and his habit for hyping up routine fly-balls as home runs. I still think the positives outweigh the negatives.

In a society when listening to the radio may be an afterthought, Hamilton makes it appointment listening for Indians fans. Many fans have grown up with Hamilton as the voice of the Tribe. Or maybe you were like me and snuck a clock radio under your pillow to listen to his calls as a kid when your parents told you the TV had to be off before the games even started in Anaheim.

It wouldn’t be an Indians radio broadcast without Hamilton and even if he doesn’t win this award, as there are some qualified finalists, he will always go down in Indians lore as the voice of the team when they actually were good.

All we need now is Hamilton to call the final out of a World Series the Indians actually win.